And now that Margery was up and well, the time was surely near when something would be done about this business. Unpleasant things had happened. The family of the Gaunts had been to see him. They had come again this evening⁠—in the middle of supper⁠—sly, grasping, malicious people, a decayed husband of about fifty with a drooping, ragged moustache, with watery eyes and the aspect of a wet rat, and an upright, aggressive, spiteful little wife, with an antique bonnet fixed very firmly on the extreme summit of her yellowish hair. She had thin lips, a harsh voice, and an unpleasant manner. There was also a meek son of about twenty, and Emily’s fiancé, who looked conscientiously sad and respectable and wore a bowler hat. But the woman did all the talking. The men only interposed when they felt that she was going too far to be effective.

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